New Year... Wait, what about March?!

"New Year, New You"!

It's a generalization, I realize this, but for the most part our industry puts a lot of concentrated effort into planning an impressive fresh faced appeal to new potential health club members every January. 

So given that they join, goals fresh in mind, how do we best support them along their journey?

Usually it looks something like this: Sixty days goes by, their attendance starts to drop, they are not receiving those results they set out to a accomplish... They may or may not have a routine in place, but really what happens to the new member after a few months of trying to get results on their own?!

If we are lucky, they get connected and plugged into a class or community within the facility to help ensure their retention.  Unfortunately, by in large we see as an industry memberships drop significantly by March if the member that joins in January, does not get connected within the club.  

There's got to be a better way, right?  there really is not a reason to have to rinse and repeat this cycle... Spikes in membership every January, followed by March drops, and then a plan and re commit to bring in more membership in the fall and then hunker down and plan for January. 

I know every club operator has given this considerable thought, but what's literally being done out there to stimulate membership on a quarterly basis vs. the react and respond role that is oh so prevalent in our industry? 

I want to share with you a tip: how to effectively stimulate membership all year long through existing program excitement and sending a serge through the existing community in your fitness center through the power of group fitness. 

I work with a lot of health club's on bringing on Les Mills group fitness programs, one of the critical things we talk a lot about is on going program launches in tandem with stimulating new membership growth.  We have seen that in keeping the programs fresh every 90-120 days you can use that as a tool to invite in new members and also re engage existing members for this happy hybrid of connectivity.  Ultimately resulting in maximizing attendance and retention and spiking membership dollars. 

Do you see the link? Stimulate an already existing community once every 3 months, encouraging members to bring their friends, and getting your existing members involved.  The goal is to get those friends to join and organically expand your membership! 

Let me know, Lindsey Rainwater, I would love to know what is it that works best for you in regards to maximizing retention in the new year and how to continue to engage existing members throughout the year.